Queen Kelly

This is Director Eric Von Stroheim's last film, produced by it's star, Gloria Swanson. There is much to be learned from the commentaries and additional features on the deluxe Kino DVD of this silent film. The film itself is a wonderful lesson in film-making of its period. Von Stroheim loved to take shots of all the props and costume details of a character – believing that this focus on detail told you more about the character than the actor alone could convey. This technique was later perfected by Hitchcock, where details shots are followed by reaction shots to move the story and emotional life along.

QUEEN KELLY is the story of a convent girl who falls in love with a dissipated prince who is promised to a debauched Queen. By today's standard, Seena Owen's performance as the queen is laughably over the top; she slithers and glowers and when she's really angry, she seems to have something stuck in her eye. Swanson herself was the prototype of today's tiny body, big head build favored in television. In her long shots her build looks almost like a pygmy, especially in comparison to Owen. But Swanson has that riveting face, and remains really a fine actress. The interview sections done as introductions to a television viewing of QUEEN KELLY show her to have retained those gorgeous and expressive eyes. This was considered her last film as a real ingénue - she was a bit long in the tooth to be playing a convent girl - but that was the style, bless them.

The original story was only about 1/3 completed when the production went way over budget and delved into areas that would never be approved by censors. Arguably, given Seena Owen's almost 100% nude (wearing either chiffon negligee, or a strategically held cat) performance, most of it may not have passed censors.

The restoration makes much ado of finding reels from the abandoned "African brothel" sequences, but when all is said and done, the "Swanson Ending" (the only way it was shown – after talkies had come in and silents were pretty much a done thing) is a very serviceable and good ending… evoking Shakespearian tragedy. Most silents were big on action, short on story, with fairly simple plots. Granted the original was supposed to have a happy, if rather suspicious, happy ending, but this makes total sense, and makes Queen Kelly seem very complete.

The only real loss of the Swanson ending is losing the believably sick (in both senses of the word) performance of Tully Marshall. Between Owen and Marshall, it is a lesson in why the production "code of decency" was developed in the first place. The irony is that, as much as she may have been considered heavy handed or intrusive for firing Von Stoheim, Swanson's ending demonstrates that Swanson really did know what she was doing as a producer. A memorable and informative trip into film history.

If you're not interested in film history or silent film, skip it.

Scandalous, characteristically grotesque parable of human degradation from director Eric Von Stroheim (Greed). Its original title was to be The Swamp, an appropriate description of the noxious mire in which the characters find themselves engulfed and (in this version anyway) overwhelmed. It is difficult to review this film given that approximately a third or so remains extant. The film was made over the final months of 1928 and early 1929, but production was halted at the request of star Gloria Swanson, whose production company was partly involved in its financing. The complete film was planned at some five hours running time. What remains is some seventy minutes of a complete first act and a lengthy fragment of a later bit of action set in East Africa which is included in the most recent restoration print (1985), along with production stills and intertitles which explain the main thrust of the missing pieces and the remainder of the story. As such what we have here is a work in progress, a segment of a complete work which makes any judgment upon its overall thematic coherence, direction, and execution speculative at best, moot at worst. Nonetheless students of film and film buffs in general will not want to miss an opportunity to see this fascinating bit of late twenties Hollywood history, not least of all because it was the last studio project for the much-maligned Von Stroheim. Having sat by and watched his masterpiece Greed torn apart by financiers and having the plug pulled on this one by none less than his own leading lady, he can't but have felt betrayed by the enchroacing commercialism in a medium of which he was proving a consummate artist. It is little wonder that Billy Wilder would cast him with gleeful sadism as the devoted butler to Swanson's decomposing harridan in Sunset Boulevard with all due historical irony, and perhaps it it even more fitting that Von Stroheim handled himself which such composure and dignity in the role.

Fortunately, Queen Kelly was shot in sequence, so the first seventy minutes or so is a coherent and well balanced bit of outrageous social hysteria. Set in a fictitious European kingdom of some sort, the events concern the pending engagement of mad Queen Seena Owen with the less than willing aristocratic playboy Walter Bryon, who prefers riding carriage horses to the hoots and hollers of female courtiers who bet their underwear on the outcome of the race. While the Queen strolls around her palace naked (strategically covered by well-placed objects, bits of scenery and a long-haired white cat), her eyes burning with paranoia and jealousy, Bryon encounters a young (Irish) convent girl (Swanson) with whom he falls instantly in love. Their meeting takes place one day whilst the prince is on manoeuvres with his regiment and the girl is out walking with her classmates under the supervision of nuns. Noticing that her bloomers have fallen around her ankles, the prince laughs and taunts her. Eventually seeing the funny side of it, the young lady returns his flirting glances, much to the shock of her protectors. The prince later conspires to meet her again by starting a fire in the convent (!), and 'rescues' her for an intimate dinner at the palace where Swanson is memorably framed by the burning flames of a roaring fire as Bryon devours and undresses her with his eyes.

The film exudes raw sexuality in almost every scene, concentrating on the hypocritical schizm between desire and propriety. Though romance and love seem to be in question, and Bryon makes an impassioned plea for his love for the young girl, there are few wholesome emotions on view here. From (literally) fire-fuelled lust and arrogant recklessness to enraged passion and sexual jealousy, the film teems with vileness. The world of the noble classes is opulent and packed with beautiful visual detail in typical Von Stroheim fashion, but is empty and evil in a way which makes all that follows an ever-darker descent into the nether regions of human degradation, climaxing with an extraordinary confrontation between Swanson and Owen where the Queen literally horse-whips her rival and drives her from the palace. In the version of the film released in 1931, it ends shortly after with Swanson throwing herself into the river and drowning, a fittingly melodramatic and damning end to a damned affair.

However, this was, as mentioned, merely the first act in a much longer and more layered study of the process of self-discovery and self-realisation, and intertitles explain that rather than perishing here, the girl is rescued and embarks on a wholly different adventure which takes her to German East Africa where her dying aunt runs a brothel. The story takes an increasingly bizarre turn as the old lady forces the girl into marriage with a loathsome, lecherous, beast of a man (played with festering glee by Tully Marshall). The restored footage (discovered in the 1960s) climaxes with an even more literal and disturbing rendition of the marriage/death scene from Greed, where literally over the dying body of her aunt, Swanson is married to Marshall, who is photographed to appear like a huge, white spider (an impression aided by the fact that he moves on wooden crutches and creeps like a predator sneaking up on prey) with soulless eyes and a body which seems to be decaying from inside, only gradually reaching the visible extremities as we meet him. Unfortunately, the footage ends at this point, and only scattered stills and intertitles briefly summarise what seems to have been a variant on the Marquis de Sade's Justine, where only by acknowledging and embracing one's basest nature can you rise and triumph over your enemies. Alas, without the benefit of the actual film to discuss, we can't really judge how successful a moral message this might have been.

As is, Queen Kelly is never less than fascinating. Von Stroheim's characteristic concerns are present, as is his penchant for grotesquerie and his explicit contempt for society, hypocrisy, and repression. It is wonderfully photographed by Gordon Pollock and Paul Ivano to enhance the richly venal world in which it is set. The original score by Adolph Tandler becomes repetitive, but this is as much because it has been added to the later sequences following its (re)discovery, and it, one presumes, like the film, is incomplete. It is certainly well worth seeing, though any conclusions as to its overall qualities are obviously tentative, as is any judgment of its potential contribution either to cinema on the whole, or a moral, parablistic cinema in particular.

The restored version of "Queen Kelly' shown on TCM recently was a revelation to those of us who only knew Gloria Swanson from "Sunset Boulevard" in the '50's. Swanson in 1928 had incredibly large and luminous (?green?) eyes, as well as that curiously angular lower jaw still evident in "Boulevard". She seemed fairly tall and almost husky in "Kelly", compared to many women (and men) of the 20's to the 50's who were physically quite small, and looked it in their screen roles. She was lovely in a unique way.

More importantly, I thought Swanson was GREAT in the part. What an incredible range of facial and body expressiveness! Given the restrictions of the plot, and doubtless a domineering director, Swanson did a tremendous job in making her character seem believable. Yes, perhaps she did look older than 18, but in my opinion, she could pass for 21 or so. She certainly didn't look older than her 31 years, as another reviewer opines. Perhaps her sheer acting skill and range of motion were convincing enough to play 10 years younger than her true age. It's done all the time on the stage and screen, why wouldn't it be acceptable in this 1928 film?

I found Walter Byron gorgeous, and strangely modern in his good looks. Not of the now-hackneyed strong-profile leading man variety popular in early films. Instead, he was impeccably groomed and costumed, with short, straight, slicked-back hair. A beautiful sight to behold. He did a very good job within the constraints of silent acting. I'll be looking for more of his work.

The Jan VanHeidt character was almost too-disgusting to be credible, but archetypes were more pronounced in the silent genre. The actor did a very credible job, doubtless under the director's specific instructions about how to convey his debauched and depraved condition.

Perhaps it's because so much of the film was lost and/or cut, but Kelly's acquiescence to marrying the dissolute Jan seemed inexplicable to me. Von Stoheim went to a lot of trouble to give Swanson a L-O-N-G flashback while the wedding ceremony was being read which included the Prince's admonition to Kelly not to "forget him", "forsake him", or words to that effect. Yet she says yes anyway. You have to make a lot of assumptions about Kelly's character and personality to justify her decision, and rationalize in your own mind why on earth she didn't manifest some gumption and say after due consternation and anguish, "No, No, Never!".

This is a technically beautiful film. The lighting, sets, costumes, etc. are wonderful! Well worth seeing, even with the missing film and downbeat ending.

I am going to address the Kino DVD of Queen Kelly because that is how I saw the film (which is probably true of most of the film's North American viewers). Queen Kelly is never going to resemble anything close to what its director Erich von Stroheim imagined. Therefore, any version is a compromise. There are two options as releases go. An abbreviated version of what was filmed of the script was released with a hasty ending shot at the request of star Gloria Swanson. This version is called the Swanson cut. The second version is a restoration that includes all of the extant footage that was filmed (some materials having been lost). To fill in gaps, this release uses still photos and a scrawl at the end to inform viewers what was supposed to have happened had the production continued. Kino decided to release the film on DVD using the restoration while having the Swanson ending as an extra. I feel that this was a mistake, and Kino should have either released both versions of the film on the DVD (preferrably) or released the Swanson cut and had the found von Stroheim footage as an extra on the DVD.

The Swanson cut is a good movie, with a weak ending. However, it does a work as a movie, if a somewhat stunted one. There is a beginning (lovers meet), a middle (lovers spend an enchanted night together), and a quick ending. Along the way, the film conjures some wonderful scenes: Queen Regina with her cat descending upon Prince Wolfram and his dog, Kelly meeting the Prince and losing a piece of clothing, Kelly in the church sanctuary bathed in candlelight, and the climatic meeting between Kelly and the Queen.

By contrast, the restoration is problematic because it fails to go anywhere. There is a beginning, the start of a middle, and then a bunch of scenes, great masterful scenes, but scenes that do not pay off. Then the film ends with an epilogue explaining what the viewer might have seen had the film finished shooting and had then been edited and released the way von Stroheim intended (not a guarantee considering what happened with Greed which was all filmed).

I can appreciate Kino's dilemma. The found, unused scenes from the film feature some of the most astounding visuals and drama of any American silent film. The brothel setting oozes ornamental decadence. Film fans owe a lot to whomever preserved these scenes. Yet, I don't think the restoration works as a self-contained film. The found footage plays like a fascinating twenty minute trailer for a grand epic that no one will ever get to see. By taking out Swanson's ending and putting in this footage, the restorers end with an unfinished film and a frustrating viewing experience.

I happened to be reading Andrew Sarris's The Primal Screen during the same period I watched Queen Kelly. A quote stood out from that book which fit director von Stroheim.

"I think it is a mistake for critics to scold artists or event to bemoan their bad luck . . . . It is better to accept and appreciate the supposed 'disappointments' of our time - Welles, Mailer, Salinger - for what they have done rather than for what they might have done if we had been able to crack the whip over them. They have all done as much as they were humanly capable of doing, and so did Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Dos Passos before them, and thank God for The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises and U.S.A. and never mind the rude avoidance of encores."

Yes, thank God for any version of Greed and Queen Kelly, even if I do believe that the restorations of both films are less satisfying for viewers than the original, theatrical cuts.

Erich von Stroheim's infamous final stab at direction (unfinished, when the plug was pulled by producer and star Gloria Swanson) is a sophisticated piece of silent cinema, wrapped in a camp plot and looking fabulous.

Gloria Swanson plays Patricia Kelly, a convent girl who meets the Prince of her dreams ('wild' Wolfram, played by Walter Byron) while she is out with the nuns. After a risqué scene concerning the soldiers and her bloomers, Gloria prays to the Holy Virgin to let her see the Prince again, while the Prince feels trapped in his engagement to the mad Queen Regina (a scene-chewing Seena Owen).

The first half of the film concerns how 'Kelly' and Wolfram come to meet up again, this time in the Palace where the jealous Queen loses no time in whipping Kelly out of doors and roaring that the Prince is 'Mine, MINE, MINE!'. The second half (unfinished) concerns Kelly's fortunes thereafter, called by her dying aunt to Africa where she finds herself in a brothel and betrothed to loathsome cripple drunk Jan Vryheid (a repellent and compelling performance from Tully Marshall), and eventually (and improbably) turns the situation round to get her happy ending, 'Queen Kelly' again.

Gloria Swanson looks absolutely gorgeous in the shimmering black and white close-ups, and her acting as Kelly is impeccable throughout - no one made better use of the 'look of horror' or the 'dipping of eyelashes' or the 'flirty smile'. Walter Byron is a moustachioed hero in the mould of John Gilbert and is an amusing second lead.

With the gaps plugged by wordy slides (in some prints, Kelly becomes Kitty in these explanatory bits, but never mind ...) and still photographs, 'Queen Kelly' is a boisterous and worthy final feature for its director. Many have seen a small bit of this film as part of Norma Desmond's home projections in 'Sunset Boulevard', but try to see the full thing - hugely enjoyable, and if not as mushily romantic as 'The Wedding March', its satirical splendor more than makes up for it!